Former President John Dramani Mahama has said his administration will work together with all stakeholders to address the problems with the Free SHS policy.
“You will agree with me that we do have challenges with the implementation of the Free SHS. We are going to sit together and think through those challenges and we are going to solve them together.” he pointed out.
According to him, the Free SHS policy has issues such as congestion, limited infrastructure, shortage of teaching aids, and overworked teachers as a result of the double-track system.
“Some of them were mentioned – the students are congested, they don’t have infrastructure, they don’t have enough teaching and learning aids, the teachers are overworked because of the double track system. Teachers work from the beginning of the year till the end with no break in between. Those are all challenges of the Free SHS.”
The former president argued that due to poor food quality, food procurement should be handed to headmasters and bursars, allowing them to obtain better quality meals for children.
“The food quality is poor. How do we decentralize the feeding system so that we put the feeding and the procurement of the food in the hands of the headmasters and the bursars – so that they can procure and get better quality food for the children? These are things that all of us must come together, sit, and discuss so that we can smoothen the implementation bottlenecks of the free SHS policy,” he added.
